Adam Scott is aware of the eyes on him and says it is not difficult to behave with propriety. Photo: Getty Images

"To sit at the head of the table with the chairman of the golf club next to me, and have this line of champions down one long table," he says. "To look down that table ... ha! ... Nicklaus, Player, Palmer, Watson, Faldo, everyone, this list of incredible champions all in one room, at your dinner. I've still got it in my head, the faces, so recognisable in the game of golf, all sitting there with me. It was surreal."

That only person Scott doesn't recognise when he watches a replay of the final round is himself, so blinkered, so blank, until that putt sinks and that triumphal exclamation escapes from his lips: "C'mon Aussies." Of his golf that day, he says: "It doesn't feel like that's me doing that, although it was. It is a very strange thing." Of the war cry, he says it was an instinctive reaction to 12 years of daily questioning at Augusta about when an Australian might at last break the hoodoo there.

Since, Scott has taken Australia by whirlwind, won four more tournaments, also the World Cup, married and ascended momentarily to No. 1 in the golf world. It is for others to judge how these riches have changed him as a person, he says, but he hopes he has taken them in his usual even stride, because, after all, his are pleasant shoes to be in just now. What he knows is that he is in his prime as a golfer, that it will never come again, and so there is no time to waste on sentimentality.

"You do need [to smell the roses] as you go along, but you can't stop for too long, or there'll be no more roses to smell," he says. "The game's moving faster than it ever has, the competition's stronger than it's ever been in my career. I have this window, and I need to keep it open as long as I can. I've got a lot more to achieve. This is it. My feeling is that this is where I have my chance to achieve everything I've ever wanted."

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Specifically, that includes at least one of every major championship. "Only a very small group of people have done that," he said. "If that was all I was able to do, that would be amazing. I'd love to win more than that. Right now, I'd like to win one more."

Scott says he can still put himself in the mind of his teenage self, nurturing the dreams he is now bringing to life. As a golfer, he says, he was not so different, say, when standing over a must-make putt on the 18th green.

"You've either got it or you don't," he says. "You're given a gift at some level, where you're able to handle the pressure of a big putt. You almost will the ball in the hole. It doesn't even matter whether you make a good stroke or not. You can control the outcome. That's how I felt as a kid, and I was really successful as a junior. I've had really similar feelings throughout my career with important putts. Somehow, that belief comes out. And often, you make them.

"It's hard to explain to people who don't play golf just how mental the game is. There are so many variables, and quite a lot of 'unfair' things that happen in golf. But you can't look at it like that at all. Otherwise, you dig yourself a hole and you never get out of it."

Scott says success has bred self-belief, in turn breeding more success. It is a virtuous cycle. Perversely, it has also made the game tougher. "I've played consistently better over the last few years, and week after week I've been able to get myself in contention," he says. "Playing under that pressure, the nervous energy that burns, is quite high. There is definitely that draining feeling.

"Four days of major golf, in contention, it takes a mental toll on you, and eventually that ends up being a physical toll. I have a recovery period after majors of two or three days to do nothing and just get fresh again." Not that Scott ever would whinge. "It's a nice way to go to work every day," he says.

Work this week is Metropolitan, the Masters and the chance of a third successive gold jacket. Scott is licking his lips at the prospect of sandbelt golf again, and encouraged by his swot of Metropolitan on Wednesday. "There might be a few more options off the tee here than some other courses," he says. "Some of the other sandbelts, you're pretty much told you've got to hit it here, you've got to hit it there. Here, it's a little more open in some areas. You can certainly challenge this course. But it might not be a good idea!"

Whatever transpires, you can be sure Scott will dignify himself. He says he is aware of the eyes on his every step here, and understands his responsibility as a role model. It is not so difficult to behave with propriety on the golf course, he says. "I know I'm going to hit bad shots. The best thing you can do is get over it and move on," he says. "Some people let their frustrations out by breaking a club. I have to let it out in other ways."

And then Adam Scott, perhaps the most decorous of great Australian sportsmen, lets out his dirty secret. "I did break a club once," he says. "It was in 2009 at the Memorial [in Ohio]. I hit a bad shot and that was the final straw. Everyone has their breaking point. I was having a frustrating year. It wasn't necessarily the worst shot I ever hit. But it needed to come out."

Besides, as anyone who ever has played golf at any level knows except Scott, the club was asking for it.